Monthly Archives: April 2014

Recently, I had a conversation with a student in high school. She was telling me how they are learning the writing format MLA. This made me think back to my days in high school when I learned this information and compared it to how my experience is in college now. In high school, the teachers would go step by step showing you how to create the proper header, cite your sources properly, and have a proper works cited page. Now that I am in college, it is much different. First of all, in high school, I was only introduced to the style of MLA. Now in college, I have been introduced to many more styles, such as APA, which I had to research how to do many of the specifics on my own. Compared to high school, in college, you are much more independent and expected to be able to many things on your own free time.

Another way you will notice that college is much different from high school is the amount of studying needed for classes. When I was in high school, a half hour of studying for a test would earn me an A. In college, I find myself studying for hours each day to earn the grades that I get. It can be somewhat of a shock for students at the beginning because they expect college to just be a continuation of high school. The truth is, it is much different. Even though it is different, that doesn’t mean it is a bad thing. You just have to focus and take it seriously.

I am sure all of you have heard about the tragedy that occurred at Franklin Regional High School. It was a tragic day of violence, but it was also a day of bravery. There were many students who were willing to risk their own safety for their classmates. These students displayed bravery and they also displayed kindness towards one another. If students can display kindness during a terrifying time, why can’t we show kindness to each other all the time? If we treated everyone with kindness, it may help to prevent something like this from happening again.

We need to think how our actions can affect others, even if it is unintentional. Maybe you have been having a bad day and you snapped at the person sitting next to you class who just asked to borrow a pencil. They don’t know you are having a bad day, so it can be taken the wrong way. Being shown kindness is something that everyone deserves.

The American Cartoonist Scott Adams once said “Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” Just think, saying hello to someone in the hallway could start your very own ripple effect. Passing along kindness to one another could help prevent more tragedies from occurring and will help to make this world a little better.

I would like to send out kind thoughts and prayers to everyone affected by the tragedy at Franklin Regional High School.